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Move over! That's My Grave!

They are all-too familiar arguments here in the Middle East: which land belongs to whom, accusations of occupation. But this time it’s a bit different.

Yamna Shushan of Kiryat Malakhi in Southern Israel bought a plot of land and has the documents to prove it – but it’s been occupied. And there’s no talking to the occupier – she’s dead.

The land in question is a cemetery plot that 77-year-old Shushan bought 11 years ago for around $1,000. She’s very keen to be buried there as it’s next to the resting place of her late husband Moshe. But last summer she discovered that another woman has been interred in her plot. It appears to have been the mistake of the burial society.

“I am not prepared to give up my burial spot, it is mine,” she told {Haaretz]( http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/a-grave-error-woman-sues-after-finding-stranger-buried-in-her-plot-1.345321) Why is it that people here have to fight for a grave that belongs to them?”

According to Haaretz, Shushan has taken the matter to court, and is imploring judges award her 50,000 shekels ($13,500) compensation and demand that the burial society removes the woman from her plot and reburies her elsewhere. The case, at Ashdod Magistrate’s Court, is likely to be drawn out as many rabbis cite serious religious problems with reinterring bodies.